Peaches Geldof’s tweet, anonymity and social media

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A media lawyer says the case shows how people remain badly informed about media law, including about libel and contempt

Peaches Geldof’s tweeting of the identities of the two mothers of the abused
babies in the case involving former Lostprophets’ frontman, Ian Watkins, has
provoked widespread comment.

The Attorney-General has seen fit to remind people that victims of sexual
offences are protected by lifelong anonymity under the law. There will no
doubt also be investigation into how the court itself accidentally published
the names of the mothers involved in the case, which was the genesis of this
serious breach.

The situation is unusual in the sense that the victims’ identities are
intrinsically linked with those of the accused because they

Court of Appeal
Published: March 3, 2015
In re M and Others (Children) (Abduction: Child’s Objections)
Before Lord Justice Richards, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Ryder
Judgment: January 27, 2015
When a court was determining whether, for the purposes of article 13 of the
Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980,
a child who objected to being returned to his country of habitual residence
had attained the age and degree of maturity at which it was appropriate to
take account of his views, the exercise required was a straightforward
examination of whether the terms of the Convention had been satisfied
without the use of any technical subsidiary tests